Scottish newspapers are in a battle for survival after local authorities transferred their recruiting spend to their own websites at the end of May.
The Scottish government is also expected to withdraw recruitment advertising from the titles, a BBC investigation revealed.
Top titles are under increasing pressure from the Scottish editions of national newspapers, with The Sun replacing the Daily Record as the biggest selling daily title in Scotland and the Daily Mail selling more than The Scotsman and The Herald combined.
Industry figures show that over the past 20 years, sales of the Record have fallen by 48.6%, The Herald by 46.4% and The Scotsman by 41.5%.
The BBC Radio Scotland investigation included a forecast by Professor Philip Meyer, an American newspaper expert, who suggested that Scotland's major quality newspapers may not survive beyond 2018. "If you take the rate of decline and extend it to the zero point, I would say the end of Scottish newspapers as we know them, within 10 years, will probably happen unless there are some surprises," he said.
Andrew Neil, former publisher of The Scotsman, added: "They're definitely in decline. It could well be as fatal as it was for the shipyards of the Clyde."
The Scottish government is also expected to withdraw recruitment advertising from the titles, a BBC investigation revealed.
Top titles are under increasing pressure from the Scottish editions of national newspapers, with The Sun replacing the Daily Record as the biggest selling daily title in Scotland and the Daily Mail selling more than The Scotsman and The Herald combined.
Industry figures show that over the past 20 years, sales of the Record have fallen by 48.6%, The Herald by 46.4% and The Scotsman by 41.5%.
The BBC Radio Scotland investigation included a forecast by Professor Philip Meyer, an American newspaper expert, who suggested that Scotland's major quality newspapers may not survive beyond 2018. "If you take the rate of decline and extend it to the zero point, I would say the end of Scottish newspapers as we know them, within 10 years, will probably happen unless there are some surprises," he said.
Andrew Neil, former publisher of The Scotsman, added: "They're definitely in decline. It could well be as fatal as it was for the shipyards of the Clyde."
No comments yet